JOE Hughes admits that maintaining his motivation has been the hardest part of preparing for fight night after his English light-welterweight title defence was shelved.

The 24-year-old, from Malmesbury, was gearing up to defend his coveted English strap, which he beat Anthony Hardy to claim back in July, at the Oasis Leisure Centre in Swindon on Saturday night but the British Boxing Board of Control opted to axe his clash with former welterweight Prizefighter champion Glenn Foot.

It transpired that as Foot had never fought under the 140lb limit, his scheduled shot at Hughes couldn’t go ahead, leaving the Malmesbury champion to settle for an eight-round contest against an international opponent.

“To be honest, I haven’t even looked up the guy I’m fighting because it could always change. My coach has and has told me what to do but I haven’t bothered,” said Hughes.

“I know that I’ve still got to do my job because if I lose, it leaves me absolutely nowhere but it is frustrating.

“I think the promoters thought that getting sanctioned would be a formality and they didn’t expect the board to say ‘no’. I think it was because Glenn hadn’t fought at light-welterweight before but it’s not as though people are queuing up to fight me and he was jumping to the front of that queue.

“When I won the title, Anthony Hardy was the only one who wanted to fight me and for this, Glenn was the only one.

“I thought once I won the English title, I could defend it a few times and then get a shot at the British but it hasn’t gone that way yet.”